20th century impressionists are often categorized alongside their 19th century, and particularly French, counterparts. This is so because of the commonality of technique and the broadness of such labels. But, within that category we find an enormous range of artistic styles and approaches. Francis Bacon produced a very unique and individually distinct form of surreal impressionism. Primarily utilizing the distortion of human figures, Bacons work subverted the traditional triptych of the Renaissance, the portrait, and religious iconography of the past. His work did not build upon the work of his predecessors in painting, it did not stand as an improvement or an addendum to their work, but as a unique expression. In his work, we encounter an exceptionally disturbing vision of the world in which the core of human hypocrisy, anger, passion, and ultimately violence erupts and is laid bare. The purpose of this paper is to present three major works of Bacon, his Triptych and Self Portraits from 1973, and what is perhaps his most well known work, his study of Velazquez Pope Innocent X from 1953.
